Injectable hydrogels with improved mechanical property based on electrostatic associations
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INVITED ARTICLE
Injectable hydrogels with improved mechanical property based on electrostatic associations Jewon Choi 1,2 & Jiwon Yoon 2 & Kyung Hyun Ahn 2,3 & Soo-Hyung Choi 4 & Kookheon Char 1,2,3 Received: 11 May 2020 / Revised: 10 August 2020 / Accepted: 11 August 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The mechanical properties of injectable and thermo-responsive ABC triblock copolymer hydrogels are enhanced by the electrostatic attraction between oppositely charged moieties introduced in the mid-blocks. The triblock copolymers are composed of biodegradable poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL), hydrophilic cationic or anionic mid-block, and temperature-responsive poly(Nisopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) with quadruple hydrogen bonding units. PCL blocks and PNIPAM blocks form separate micellar cores, and the mid-blocks make a bridge between the cores. The dynamic nature and thermo-responsiveness of the PNIPAM block primarily endow the temperature- and shear-responsiveness to the hydrogel, and therefore make the hydrogel injectable and self-healable. In particular, the electrostatic attraction introduced in the mid-blocks results in the enhanced mechanical properties of the hydrogels. The dual-responsive hydrogel with the improved moduli will aid in designing soft materials in the field of biological and biomedical applications. Keywords Electrostatic association . Temperature-responsive hydrogel . Block copolymer . Self-healing . Biodegradability
Introduction Temperature-responsive hydrogels exhibiting sol-gel transition have been investigated due to their excellent processabilities and tunable gelation kinetics [1–3]. The responsive properties of the hydrogels have been usually achieved by swelling Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00396-020-04726-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Soo-Hyung Choi [email protected] * Kookheon Char [email protected] 1
The National Creative Research Center for Intelligent Hybrids, School of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Seoul National University, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea
2
School of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Seoul National University, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea
3
Institute of Chemical Processes, School of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Seoul National University, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea
4
Department of Chemical Engineering, Hongik University, Mapo-gu, Seoul 04066, Republic of Korea
gelators, such as amphiphilic block copolymers [4–6], random copolymers [7], or cyclodextrin-based supramolecular complexes [8] in aqueous solution. Over the past decades, there have been many efforts to form stable hydrogels exhibiting rapid responses to the external stimuli, such as pH, shear, and temperature, by swelling these gelators [9–11]. In particular, ABC triblock copolymers composed of water-soluble midblock and thermoresponsive endblocks have attracted immense interests because o
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